Gifts Unlooked For
by Elizabeth Culmer
Summary: A week after they enter the Medium, Roxy and Jane take a trip to Prospit.


**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Andrew Hussie. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** This was written in response to the following kinkmeme prompt: _Jane/Roxy. Anything based on the Act 6 Act 4 flash. Because seriously the ladies deserve love too._ I wrote it in November 2012, so it's obviously been rendered AU by subsequent canon developments, but I think it's pretty cute nonetheless.

**Summary:** A week after they enter the Medium, Roxy and Jane take a trip to Prospit. Hints of Roxy/Jane.

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**Gifts Unlooked For  
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"We should check on Prospit," Jane says, one week into your fun but probably pointless run through the gas-and-zombies weirdness that Sburb turned out to be.

You and Dirk share a wary look. Okay, you've more or less figured out the obvious dangers of your respective lands and how to deal with them - gas masks on LOTAK, stay the fuck out of the canyons on LOMAX, do _not_ look directly at the flares on LOPAN, and make sure you have adequate battery powered lamps on LOCAH - but you have enough half-memories of Derse from your sleepwalking days to know how screwed up that world was. If Prospit's been fighting the Batterwitch, what's to say they haven't gone equally dangerous in response?

But Janey's awfully stubborn when she puts her foot down, and she is your friendleader after all. So you plan a trip to the land of golden bling. Jane wants to bring all four of you, but Dirk's pretty good about putting his own foot down (even if you think he picks some damn weird things to get determined about) and he points out that Jake showing up would be a great recipe for chaos since the carapacians think he's dead and all. Which is a sobering point, and also it's totes a good idea to have somebody waiting on your lands as backup in case there's fishy stuff going down on Prospit. Eventually Jane agrees.

You end up alchemizing a copy of Dirk's rocketboard for yourself (most awesome ride _ever_, seriously) and a giant rocket fork that Janey can ride like a broom because she's a tight-ass and wants something to hang onto with her hands. (It is the most ridiculous thing you have seen in your entire life, with tiny jets of flame shooting from between the tines like she's been mixing fire instead of batter. But she likes it, so whatevs!) And then it's you two girls flying off into the dark of the Medium, heading toward Skaia's swirling blue-white glow.

You break atmosphere on LOPAN, skirting between the storms of charged particles and shivering at the weird cobweb feel of the barrier that keeps the neon from floating out into the strangely breathable ether of what ought to be airless space.

"I can't decide if this place is a physicist's wet dream or screaming nightmare," you say idly to Jane - or shout, technically, so she can hear you over the roar of the rockets' burn.

"Why not both?" she shouts back, a wild grin spreading over her face despite her best attempts to fight it. You grin back - you _knew_ she had adventuring in her, no matter how sensible she tries to act. Nobody who gets that excited about mysteries and can shrug off GCat's antics so easily can be a tight-ass all the way through.

Speaking of tight-asses, though...

"Have you said anything to Jake yet?" you ask. You have been trying to corner both her and him on this subject, but Janey keeps making excuses and Dirk has like some kind of Jake-centric radar and just materializes in the background and hovers every time you talk to Mr. English. Jake either doesn't notice he's being stalked or actively likes having Dirk around - even after that bizarre thing where Dirk and Shades manipulated him into kissing Dirk's decapitated bloody head, which you are _still_ not sure what the fuck that was all about even after Jane shook Dirk into trying to explain himself - so you're pretty sure that ship has sailed... but it's not good for Jane to stew over lost chances or get jealous or whatever. You need to know what she's thinking so you can make sure she's okay. You cannot stand it when Jane is unhappy.

Jane looks down at her hands, wrapped around the handle of her fork.

"There's nothing to talk about, is there?" she says, falsely bright. "I screwed up, he made his choice, end of story! I'm sure he and Dirk will be very happy together! I am happy for them as their friend!"

You shift your weight, steering your rocketboard close enough that you can smack Janey's head. "Dummy! Okay, so you don't want to talk to the boys, but that doesn't mean you can't talk to _me_. Aren't we BFFsies forever and ever? You think I've never screwed up and done stuff I regret? It's okay to be sad or angry or whatever. Don't clench your ass and pretend it doesn't hurt!"

"Watch your flames, Ro-lal!" Jane shouts, ducking away.

Oops. You veer a few feet to the left and sit down with your legs hanging sideways off the board so you and Jane are at the same level. "Sorry," you say with your best big watery eyes, the kind that used to make your neighbors all flustered when you were younger and there was still more food in the habitat, before the Batterwitch dumped that last bit too much poison in the sea trying to kill her weirdass squid monster, the fish all died, and the gangs started getting out of control.

Jane waves your apology off. "It's all right, I know you're probably tipsy right now."

You hide the pang that sends through your chest. You _aren't_ tipsy - you haven't had more than one martini a day since you woke on Derse with Jane's dead and broken body in front of you, your worst nightmare brought to life. (Which is not to say you haven't wanted to get plastered, but you can't risk it when your friends are depending on you.) It hurts that she hasn't noticed you turning over a new leaf. You force a grin onto your face and shrug.

"It does hurt," Jane says, looking blankly forward toward Skaia's glow. "You're right. It hurts a lot. I just... I like him so much, and then I just froze. And now he's with Dirk. Oh, maybe they're not _together_-together, not yet, but you know what I mean." She makes an aimless, circling gesture with one hand, apparently meant to illustrate something. You have no idea if that's some kind of antediluvian code, but you know what she's talking about. Jake is practically like a puppy, the way he's been hanging over Dirk, and Dirk's actually kind of pulling a puppy act himself - not as obvious, but he's totally doing the herd-and-protect thing that you think some dogs were bred for.

"I've always admired his zest for life," Jane continues. "I wish I could be that open, but I suppose I'm more like Dirk that way, more inclined to keep myself to myself. Except he was open when it counted, wasn't he?"

She sounds so small and bitter, you wish you could wrap her up in a giant hug. But rocket flames keep you apart.

"I guess," you say. "I dunno if being all open with emotions is always a good thing, though. I mean, how long did it take Shades to convince Jake to kiss Dirk's stupid head? And I couldn't get over you being dead fast enough to kiss you - Dirk had to do that for me, and he doesn't even like girlparts. I bet you'd have stepped up and gotten down to business right away. Tight-ass heroes to the rescue!"

Jane rolls her eyes. "I strongly suspect the only reason Dirk didn't flip out is because he had some sort of warning from the terrorhorror things that supposedly lurk out beyond Derse. If they cared enough to give him navigation tips, why not an emotional preview as well?"

"You totes could've had the same thing from those cloud visions you were telling me about," you say, but you let the subject drop the way she obviously wants and spend the rest of the trip talking about the outfits you want to alchemize once you've gathered enough underling bones and figured out what bits of LOPAN are safe to dismantle for raw grist. Janey wants pants and a new fedora. _Boring!_ You have spent your life dreaming about elegant dresses and makeup and glamour - the kind your mother wore like a second skin - and you don't care if there's nobody here willing to admire you or not. You are going to alchemize the shit out of a sexy adventuring dress once you figure out the perfect colors.

"Pink and purple, obviously," Jane says.

You look suspiciously at her. "I always wear pink and purple. What if I want to try something new and different?"

"Pink and purple bring out your eyes," she says. Then she ducks her head and looks away.

Well now, what is this! Is Janey _embarrassed?_ You think she is. You also think she's been looking at your eyes... and if that's true, perhaps her eyes have been wandering to other places as well.

"Oh look, there's Prospit!" Jane says before you can figure out how best to respond to this revelation. And indeed, there is Prospit, peeking around the curve of Skaia in a welter of gold and blinding light. You're pretty sure it doesn't actually glow itself, but Skaia's light reflects off of every pointy roof and railing until Prospit might as well be a disco ball.

You have never seen an actual disco ball, but they look pretty cool in ancient movies. You kind of want to combine one with a magic 8 ball and see if you can get your fortune told in glitter-glam style. Maybe that way it'll hurt less to find out that all your friends are in love with people who aren't you.

(...Maybe that's not a true fortune anymore, though? You tuck that hope away for later examination.)

"How are we doing this?" you ask Jane, since she's the closest you have to a native guide to the land of bling and righteousness. "Going straight in to the palace, scoping out your old bedroom, wrapping ourselves up and trying to pass for carapacians, or what?"

Jane bites her lip. "I don't want to sneak," she says. "It feels... out of place, I suppose. And we can't start with my tower - don't you remember it blew up? We could look at Jake's, though."

"Fuck no, who wants to see his shitty movie posters?" you say as fast as you can. You are not giving her any extra chances to pine over Jake English. He had his chance, he lost it, too bad for him.

"He does have awful taste, doesn't he?" Jane admits with a rueful sort of smile.

You smile back, big and blinding. "You said it, sister. Hey, I tell you what - let's just go find the White Queen and talk this out woman to woman. What's the worst that can happen?"

"She can throw us in prison," Jane points out.

"So we break out," you say as you approach the giant floating letters that hover just beyond Prospit's chained pentagonal moon. "And then we go laugh at the boys who'll probably be stuck halfway through some mad overcomplicated plan to rescue us."

Jane laughs, like you meant her to. "Oh gosh, I can see it now! Jake would want it to be dashing like in some adventure flick and Dirk would want to micromanage every detail. They'd take a whole day just to argue out a basic plan, wouldn't they?"

"By which time we'd be back on LOPAN relaxing in the evening flares, like two sexy ladies of max class and style," you agree. You hold up a hand and she reaches across the space between to give you a high five. _Awesome_. "And you never know, the White Queen might turn out to be totes on our side," you add. "I think Prospit's supposed to be neutral about the players' quests and stuff, but since Derse is already cheating with assassins and all that crap, I bet she might be willing to bend the rules a little too. Probably not for me, but you might get some sweet loot out of this trip."

"Jake, too. He's also a Prospit dreamer," Jane says, scrupulously fair as usual.

You bite back a sigh. "Yeah, J too." And hey, you can't even begrudge him the chance. He's your friend too, and it's not like you didn't have your own teeny tiny little crush on him back in the day before you realized that was never gonna happen and anyway there was someone else you liked better (even if she didn't like you back the same way).

"Well then, with that resolved, let's get this show on the road!" Jane says and urges her rocketfork down toward the spiky, shimmery glare of Prospit. "Geronimo!"

You stand on your rocketboard and hurtle in her wake, grinning fit to wake the dead.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"How did it go?" Dirk asks the next day when you return to the rendezvous point on LOPAN. Jake isn't immediately visible, but after a couple seconds you spot him halfway up a nearby pyramid settled into a nice little sniper's nest. He's not as good with rifles as you are, but he's a hell of a lot better suited to long-ranged attacks than either Dirk or Jane. It makes sense to have him as backup. (Also Dirk is less likely to startle any guests you might have brought. Wait. No. Scratch that thought. Dirk is plenty startling. But at least he's quieter than Jake.)

"You would not believe how great it went," you tell him, and empty your sylladex of all the supplies the White Queen loaded you down with. Dirk actually blinks in surprise at the size of the pile - you can tell, even behind his pointy anime shades.

"I take it she's on our side," he says.

You grin and hitch a thumb over your shoulder to where Jane is just now landing - you took a few shortcuts through the electrical storms on your way down, which Janey will probably scold you for once she gets her breath back. "Nope," you say. "She's on _Jane's_ side. Wait 'til you catch a load of the present she handed over."

Dirk raises one eyebrow.

"White. King's. Scepter," you say, dropping each word clear and precise into the air between you and your kinda-sorta moirail. He thinks he's hot shit for getting you all into the Medium more or less alive? Okay yeah, that was pretty cool even counting the wacky decapitation bullshit - credit where credit is due! - but Janey's won you an even bigger prize just by being herself and asking nicely, no puppet strings or manipulation needed.

Dirk whistles.

"Also some battleship canons for Jake to mess around with and add to his guns," you add in the spirit of fair play, "but seriously, is this awesome or is this awesome?"

"I would have to say it might even qualify as _fucking_ awesome," Dirk says. He quirks a tiny smile at you.

You grin back. "We are so freaking lucky to have them, aren't we?"

He glances over his own shoulder toward Jake, who's put away his rifle and is climbing down the side of the pyramid a bit too fast for caution. "We are," he agrees.

Jane hurries up, eager to display her prize and chatter about all the advice the White Queen gave her, just as Jake dashes over to your new supply heap from the other side. They skid to a stop and exchange an awkward look, obviously unsure how to deal with the giant stupid elephant in the middle of the metaphorical room. You and Dirk don't even have to look at each other before you're both in motion.

He punches Jake in the shoulder and says something about remembering he has fucking rocket boots next time he needs to reach the ground in a hurry. You sling your arm over Jane's shoulders and pull her in for a hug and a big sloppy kiss on the forehead.

"Roxy, ew!" she protests, but the face she makes is 'you're-so-silly,' not 'ick-don't-touch-me' and her voice is warm and fond. She sticks her tongue out at you, then slings her own arm around your waist and nestles into your side. And when she holds out the scepter to show the boys, the blue glow of the orb is exactly the same color as her eyes.

Sburb still seems pretty pointless to you - zombies and poison gas and all - but the White Queen says hope is coming. You remember the way she looked between you and Jane and smiled when she said that, and you think that maybe, just maybe, she means that for more than the game.

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**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I appreciate all comments, but I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_.


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